Kelly Malton appeared at Hartlepool Magistrates' Court on the day she turned 31 and pleaded guilty to being more than three times the legal drink-drive limit.

The court heard Malton was arrested after she stalled her car in the middle of the road after drinking alcopops with a friend and deciding to go out for the night.

And after wishing her happy birthday, chairman of the bench Eric Wheelwright banned Malton – who works in sales – from driving for 26 months, ordered her to do 50 hours of unpaid work and pay £45 court costs.

He said: "Happy birthday, but not particularly happy circumstances I'm afraid. We are amazed you drank as much alcohol before you went out for a night out."

Prosecutor Philip Morley said the offence took place at 11.40pm on September 27 after Malton had been drinking the vodka-based alcopop WKD with her friends.

He said police were called to the junction of Rydal Street and Elwick Road, in Hartlepool, and identified Malton as the driver of a blue Vauxhall Corsa car which was stopped in the middle of the road.

Officers took a breath test from her which showed there was 111 microgrammes of alcohol in 100 millilitres of breath. The legal limit is 35 microgrammes.

"She made full admissions to driving the car after having a drink of vodka but she couldn't remember many details of what had happened," said Mr Morley.

Mitigating, Barry Gray told the court Malton had driven to her friend's house, a quarter of a mile away from her home in Rydal Street, earlier in the evening and then drank some WKD.

Mr Gray said before the friends went into town Malton made the "naive decision" to drive her car the short distance home before her "evening's entertainment".

He said: "That's when the car stalled in the middle of the road. It was causing an obstruction and there were efforts being made to move it when police arrived.

"She was over the limit but she wasn't intending to drive her car any further than the short distance home."